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ARE Bites the Dust

Just saw read the e-mail they sent, too bad. I never did all that well there, but I know many that have.

In their e-mail they said its the first loss they have taken in ten years, but there has to be more involved as they claim 2017 was looking pretty grim.

I wonder how many people will be settling for .10 on the dollar for the final payout? Then again is it worth chasing them?

From the e-mail:

We will be unable to remit Q4 2016 commissions in full and are proposing a settlement of 10 cents on the dollar (USD) for payments received through 27 December 2016. We also request the following conditions:

1. That you consider this negotiated settlement to be “paid in full”.
2. That no further legal action be taken with regards to the above referenced commissions owed.

Another door closed.
 
This should be pause for thought for those only now considering getting into erotica e-booking market publishing. The wave on that is pretty much gone. ARE is closing because it's sunk into the red financially. The market was big at the start of the e-revolution, but erotica was an underserved area, particularly fetish niches, then. That's no longer the case. There's a glut of stuff on offer, folks already have their Kindles and Nooks stuffed with far more than they are ever going to read, and quite a bit of what is on offer is unpolished self-published schlock that has turned readers off. I have no idea where either the erotica market or e-books is heading from here. Those of us with a lot in the market for a long time already have fan bases and will last a bit longer than those now trying to break in with a single work.
 
ARe

I am published through them (when they were invitation only), and they aren't paying us for the titles they published. We either sign the amended contract or they hold our rights hostage. My timeline is blowing up with readers and authors pissed. I've already pulled what self-pub titles I have and my main publisher, Dreamspinner, has pulled the rest of mine.

It's dirty dealings all the way around.

I highly suggest downloading your ebooks and pulling titles. ARe isn't paying *any* royalties after 12/27/16/ and only 10 cents on the dollar on royalties on before that.

This came *after* they sent our amended contracts for audio and foreign right less than a week ago. And emails for advertising on their site.

(I was going to email you, Pilot, to see if you got the email. I see you did.)
~M
 
nomoretears00 said:
I am published through them (when they were invitation only), and they aren't paying us for the titles they published. We either sign the amended contract or they hold our rights hostage. My timeline is blowing up with readers and authors pissed. I've already pulled what self-pub titles I have and my main publisher, Dreamspinner, has pulled the rest of mine.

It's dirty dealings all the way around.

I highly suggest downloading your ebooks and pulling titles. ARe isn't paying *any* royalties after 12/27/16/ and only 10 cents on the dollar on royalties on before that.

This came *after* they sent our amended contracts for audio and foreign right less than a week ago. And emails for advertising on their site.

(I was going to email you, Pilot, to see if you got the email. I see you did.)
~M
Click to expand...

Thanks. No, I haven't received anything directly from them. Two of my publishers notified me of what was happening and forwarded their e-mail (I haven't heard from the third publisher, eXcessica--but then I don't hear anything from eXcessica on my 23 books there, because I've let them keep any profits on the books I have with them). Both publishers who notified me are busy pulling my books. I'm not sure why, as they will drop off anyway when the Web site goes down. I was just being distributed through them, not published. It will be a much bigger problem for those who were published through them. Sorry you'll be having that hassle.

I'm sorry they are going down because they were the only distributor I was checking regularly. That still leaves me with six distributors, but who knows how many more will go under. I'm just glad I was publishing when the erotica e-book market was flying high. Many of mine are available in paperback as well.
 
sr71plt said:
This should be pause for thought for those only now considering getting into erotica e-booking market publishing. The wave on that is pretty much gone. ARE is closing because it's sunk into the red financially. The market was big at the start of the e-revolution, but erotica was an underserved area, particularly fetish niches, then. That's no longer the case. There's a glut of stuff on offer, folks already have their Kindles and Nooks stuffed with far more than they are ever going to read, and quite a bit of what is on offer is unpolished self-published schlock that has turned readers off. I have no idea where either the erotica market or e-books is heading from here. Those of us with a lot in the market for a long time already have fan bases and will last a bit longer than those now trying to break in with a single work.
Click to expand...

Just a quick addition to your talking about the market flooded, people's e-readers are full etc...

Know what many of them are full of?

Free.

In addition to the points you're making-which I'm not disputing in anyway- Free has been the real killer in the last few years since Amazon started their select programs. Factor in you can buy an e-book from amazon and for no reason at all return it after you read it and do it fifty times a month and they keep letting the buyer do it. That's in a sense another form or free, they pay they're price then get it back right away.

SW proudly boasts on their home page they carry over 63k free e-books.

So as I've been saying for awhile now if you're someone who is barely selling, or not selling what you used to as you're tossing up free books and advertising all over twitter and Facebook yelling free book free book...

You are a big part of the problem in the current market.

Just as Pilot pointed out the market is flooded which makes it tough free makes it tougher because back when free was rare, it worked. Now free is everywhere people literally never have to buy an erotic e-book again and can read until they go blind.

As for 'if they like the free book they will buy more?" that used to be the whole point and I'm sure some people still get an occasional few sales, but its rare. They like your free book? They sit back and wait for your next "I have a free book" tweet and FB post.

Free to the degree its out there now denotes desperation. Constantly saying here take this is pretty much making someone think you think its not worth charging. What do we say here when readers gripe? You get what you pay for.

Many people-my publisher is one of them-thinks literotica is a vast sea of shit why...because its free. We know there is shit here, but also a vast amount of very good stuff and many people now selling came from here. But free has a connotation of 'worthless'

So I know I went off topic a bit, but Pilot's speaking of the state of the market brought this out for me because it pisses me off.

For those who defend free, fine, maybe it has worked somewhat for you or you just want to argue, but I'll say this. I average 700+ e-book sales a month-granted I have a large library which as Pilot noted is a plus-but compared to what most indy authors are doing I'm doing pretty well.

I have never once in five years of selling given a book away for free. Not once. The half off SW sales, yes. BUt never for free. People who follow my books know they are going to pay and they don't mind because they always have.

You can keep bragging "1000 people downloaded my free book" and have not on cent to show or you can sell 10 books a month and have $20. Its that simple

And I"m talking authors, but let's get back to this topic, how the hell can a platform sell anything when people are running around grabbing free books. Amazon doesn't need the money they sell millions of dollars a day.

SW survives because it carries a lot of fetish stuff other sites won't and is solely indy and there are people who support their fav indy authors.

The smaller sites are falling fast and free is a huge reason

So if you're going to give it away then just stick to here and let people trying to sell compete with other sellers not the 'freeloaders'
 
A small aside.

When I was a secondhand bookdealer with a shop I knew that offering free books was a waste of time. Every month I acquired piles of rubbish books that I might have to pay for recyclers to take away - because I was a business. If I was a charity book shop, the recyclers would pay a minimum amount for a sack load, but as a business? I pay, not them.

I had a table outside my shop with books priced at ten pence or six for fifty pence. When I was desperate I would reduce that to five pence or a dozen for fifty pence.

At one penny a book? I shifted hundreds of books in a week.

But free books? They would sit there untouched.
 
This is depressing, as I was thinking of taking a run at selling when I retired.

To what extent is Literotica the problem? Even just counting red H's there's a lifetime of free reading here for anyone. If you just want to get off, and for most people that's what erotica is for, you never need to go anywhere else (unless you have a couple of fetishes only served by other free sites).

Amazon, remember, isn't in the business of publishing. They want to sell stuff and they are fantastically successful at it. Free books work for them; I guarantee it works because I have some idea how data driven they are and they've got everything optimized. They don't care if the authorial well goes dry because they already have more erotica (and anything else) on tap than anyone needs. You can get a cheap kindle and tons of free books if you agree to let the kindle show you ads. That's all they want.

And let's face it, quite a lot of erotica readers are not quality driven. If I can pay $2 for a finely crafted work, or get something trashy but still hot for free...

By the way, what happens if Amazon buys Literotica? They buy everything else. They wouldn't be buying the stories - those are ours - but they'd be buying access to the Literotica fan base - many thousands of web savvy customers who are hooked on orgasms and could probably be lured into paying .10 a page. Authors who have abandoned Lit wouldn't put up a fuss... Hey Laurel, is this your eventual exit strategy? :)
 
HandsInTheDark said:
This is depressing, as I was thinking of taking a run at selling when I retired.

To what extent is Literotica the problem)
Click to expand...

Oh, all it means is straight erotica is a challenge. Theres a load of free stuff out there but an awful amount of it is, well, awful. Me, I want to go down the red hot romance with a dash of action path. Kind of chick lit with red hot sex. Give the reader a good story with great sex. Its what I like to read myself, but even the hot romances are not that great on hot descrptive sex. So I figure what the heck. I'm going to try it and see.

I don't think Lit is a problem at all. If anything, its an opportunity to build a reader base. Wattpad is the same for YA romances. A pool of readers, some of whom may buy your books if you're good enough. Its a changing world, gotta adapt coz there's no going back.
 
HandsInTheDark said:
By the way, what happens if Amazon buys Literotica? They buy everything else. They wouldn't be buying the stories - those are ours - but they'd be buying access to the Literotica fan base - many thousands of web savvy customers who are hooked on orgasms and could probably be lured into paying .10 a page. Authors who have abandoned Lit wouldn't put up a fuss...
Click to expand...

If Amazon bought Literotica, it most likely would just shut it down. According to the last valuation Laurel commented on on the forum, she doesn't think the Web site is worth much.
 
lovecraft68 said:
In their e-mail they said its the first loss they have taken in ten years, but there has to be more involved as they claim 2017 was looking pretty grim.

I wonder how many people will be settling for .10 on the dollar for the final payout? Then again is it worth chasing them?
Click to expand...

I'm curious as to how one goes from profitable one year to "ten cents in the dollar" failure ithe next, in that industry. I would've thought that running costs for e-publishing would be fairly low and predictable; did they get blind-sided by something unforeseen?

HandsInTheDark said:
To what extent is Literotica the problem? Even just counting red H's there's a lifetime of free reading here for anyone. If you just want to get off, and for most people that's what erotica is for, you never need to go anywhere else (unless you have a couple of fetishes only served by other free sites).
Click to expand...

Or technical issues - e.g. some other sites play better with e-readers than Lit does. And buying your porn through Amazon might feel a bit more discreet than going to an erotica site.

But, yeah, it'd be interesting to know how much they compete. Comparing Lit view stats to Amazon erotica e-book sales might shed some light on that, if anybody has those numbers handy.
 
Yeah, Torquere is closing finally. I know the original owners and the current owner/s. Last January Torquere screwed Sean Michael out of 10K. She, in turn, had the current owner arrested when the check bounced. I saw the police report. The previous owners also had books there and also took a huge loss--along with just about all their authors.

I do agree the market is bottoming out. We (and I mean those of us that pub mainly M/M) have lost Amber Quill. Samhain Publishing pulled the 'Oh, we're closing. Oh, wait! No we're not!' and Torquere has been in trouble for at least a year. Dreamspinner, my main pub, is no longer taking series w/o permission now. And now ARe is screwing us out of thousands. They are certainly trying with me.

I'm lucking in the fact I have a loyal fan base that started here. I'm to the point I actually make more than when I taught... but my numbers are down for the past two quarters.

And this shit with ARe pisses me off greatly. I'm tired of publishers keeping our money, which is why I'm thinking of self-pubbing.

But as far as free goes... I have one book that is free and that is all I'll do. It's the one that won a contest here. It *may* have brought me a few more readers, but not many.

But many do put out free stuff.
 
I certainly put out free stuff on the Internet, not least here on Literotica. But I'm in it more for readers than for profit. I enjoy writing it regardless.
 
I had a problem with my e-mail that affected my PayPal. I solved the problem and wrote a short how to. I published the how to in Smashwords. The result was to kill all of my Smashwords sales for a couple of weeks. NEVER AGAIN!
 
R. Richard said:
I had a problem with my e-mail that affected my PayPal. I solved the problem and wrote a short how to. I published the how to in Smashwords. The result was to kill all of my Smashwords sales for a couple of weeks. NEVER AGAIN!
Click to expand...

I don't see the evidence of cause/effect here.
 
sr71plt said:
If Amazon bought Literotica, it most likely would just shut it down. According to the last valuation Laurel commented on on the forum, she doesn't think the Web site is worth much.
Click to expand...

Based on web traffic, Lit is around the 50th most popular porn site in the world, a bit higher actually.

I have no idea how value is calculated, but i think there are many ways to increase value, the same way a good agent could increase home value. I mean, with all the monthly viewers this place gets, the value does have potential.

One of the things thats necessary is a new modern look, but of course they're already doing that.

Also I've always wondered why Lit doesnt seek advertisers, instead of having those same camsite advertisement that no one ever looks at.

Laurel !!!

Please join discussion! 😭😭😭
 
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The real threat to making money as an author is the lack of filters. Buyers are being deluged with crap due to the ease of self-publishing. The continued demise of publishers (the filters) will only exasperate the issue.

Sad to say, but you need to be a master of social media to start as an author today. Counts me out!
 
So what should ARe be doing? They dont have the money. Its not like they did this on purpose. Its business.
 
HeyAll said:
So what should ARe be doing? They dont have the money. Its not like they did this on purpose. Its business.
Click to expand...

If there is truth in the articles Lovecraft provided links to, it sounds like unconscionable behaviour on the part of the CEO, possibly over an extended period of time. At the very least, it sounds to me like someone had an ethics bypass. Where's the money?

Here in Australia the ACCC (Australian Consumer and Competition Commission) would, in those circumstances, most likely get involved and pursue the Directors. Trading insolvent is an offence, and directors can be personally liable.
 
I have (had?) books in ARE. I am NOT a lawyer.
Let's assume that ARE goes into bankruptcy. ALL of the creditors must be individually notified, if the bankruptcy is to apply to each creditor. No notification, in effect no bankruptcy.
Assets of ARE. Probably the principal assets of ARE are the publication rights for the books that were/are listed in the ARE site. The value of said publication rights would be determined by the total sales of said books. (If ARE has no records, then the payments to each author are the records. The value of said publication rights are a tax loss for the author. Check with your tax people. The value of any retained said publication rights are a taxable gain for ARE and the IRS will be interested.) If ARE retains said publication rights, then ARE has valuable assets. If ARE cancels said publication rights, then ARE is required to make legal notification to EACH author, for EACH published book. (Spelling is critical.) If ARE has promotional type contracts, then each promotional customer must be individually notified, for each promotional contract, else no bankruptcy.
Do write to the bankruptcy court.
 
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